I play games without fast travel. In Assassin's Creed Shadows, you'll find me hopping on a horse and simply enjoying the views for miles and miles before reaching my eventual destination. This is how I played Skyrim. It's how I played Red Dead Redemption. I even spent my time slowly wandering Hyrule Field between dungeons in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as a kid, a once-grand location that now seems charmingly quaint.
Yeah, sure, there are "missions" and "things to do" once you reach your destination, but proper objectives have always been a little less interesting to me than those big, empty spaces in between. What'll I find when I reach that mountain? Surely nothing quite so fulfilling as simply watching the sun rise over it.
It's this sort of appeal that's drawn me to games like American Truck Simulator, and I've started to think of any game where my favorite part is simply moving from place to place as a trucking game. Now, with the release of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, I think we've finally gotten the ultimate trucking game, and it's all because Sam Porter Bridges is not a man. He's a truck.
What a long, strange trip it's been
Let's start with the basic reasons Sam is so truck-coded. Heavy-duty cargo-carrying capabilities? Check. Upgradeable parts to help with specific types of hauls? Check. Enough momentum when moving downhill at full load to knock an SUV sideways? Absolutely check. (There may be more traditional trucks for Sam to pilot in-game, but let's not forget that trucks haul other trucks around in real-life, too.)
That sense of momentum is key – keeping Sam upright and on the move is all about managing his speed as he turns and navigates natural obstacles, and you'll feel every ounce of the cargo's weight as you take on bigger and bigger orders. It's the same feeling I get from American Truck Simulator, where control of your rig is key, and the weight of every trailer and cargo type completely changes the vibe of each haul.
What separates a good trucking game – like Assassin's Creed or Skyrim – from a great trucking game is just how much emphasis is placed on the journey. Is the open-world a place that contains things for you to do, or is navigating the world itself the whole point? As Oscar writes, Death Stranding 2 is one of few open world games that justifies having such a huge map, and it's because it doesn't treat the spaces in between as wasted space. They're the whole point.
Death Stranding 2 has expanded its destination activities over those in the first game. The stealth and combat are more robust and engaging, and the prolific availability and power of non-lethal weapons – a must in a world where a single death can have apocalyptic consequences – means it's much less hassle to play it as a traditional action game. These parts are fun enough, sure, but they act more as a way to vary the pacing between deliveries than an attraction in their own right.
In Hideo Kojima's own words, speaking just after showing a dramatic boss battle ahead of Death Stranding 2's launch, "It's a delivery game, okay? Don't forget that." And, indeed, the focus is squarely on the deliveries. You still spend most of the game simply trucking from place to place, and a big chunk of the remaining time is spent planning how you're going to truck from place to place.
The three layers of great trucking
In my dozens of hours with American Truck Simulator, I've developed a grand theory about how all great trucking games operate at three different levels of engagement. (Listen, you've got a lot of time to think on these long hauls.) The first layer is simply the act of moving your vehicle - or body, if you're a human truck like Sam. It's not particularly challenging, but holding it together over rougher terrain while you continue to plan your route forward is just mentally taxing enough to keep you in tune with your rig.
The route planning, then, is the second level. In a traditional truck, you've got to maintain your fuel levels, making sure to stop off here and there to top off. For Sam, that's stamina, and you've got to keep a canteen ready and regularly filled between proper rest stops. On an American highway, you might need to watch out for detours due to construction or accidents. The fact that Sam's detours come from weird ghost things and cargo-crazed bandits doesn't make them any different.
That route – the essential core of your journey – has power because you decide on it, and you set it based on the capabilities of your truck. You can take ownership, even as the world around you presents you with obstacles forcing you to change it. It's like you're writing your own playbook with the chaos of miles of open country trying to run a counter-play.
The final level is made up of your long-term goals. In American Truck Simulator, I'm trying to collect money faster than the loan payments on my truck come in, and save up enough to start buying more tractor-trailers and hiring drivers for a burgeoning logistics empire. In Death Stranding 2, it's all about building up your reputation with various people to unlock new and better tools to make Sam's trucking more effective.
Working class hero
One last time: Death Stranding 2 is, unequivocally, a trucking game. You can't have a trucking game without controlling a truck. Therefore, the main character himself is a truck. I'll admit that this argument is pretty vibes-based, but come on, those vibes are undeniable. Put Sam in a company-branded hat with a mesh back. Give him some cheap sunglasses. You're going to tell me this man is not truck-coded?
Sam is a blue collar icon. Norman Reedus has exuded charm at every stop of the Death Stranding press tour because he feels like a capital-R capital-G Regular Guy amid every bizarre Kojima-branded revelation about the game's story. That "I don't really understand what's happening, I just gotta deal with it" energy carries straight through to Sam, who shoulders the working class vibe of somebody who's just got a job to do as the world around him goes increasingly off the rails.
The whole metaphor about Sam being a "bridge" between people was never particularly subtle, but I think it's clear that if you really examine his attributes and how he interacts with the people around him, there's another object he more closely resembles. Steady. Rugged. Laden with cargo. Liable to tip over if he takes a downhill turn too fast. Sam Porter Bridges is a truck.
Check out our guide to Death Stranding 2 vehicles if you want to give this truck wheels.
